Rubem Fonseca - Crimes of August

As always, Freitas read carefully what Lacerda wrote in his paper. General Ancora, previously accused by the journalist of trying to impede the uncovering of the facts of the attack, had been fired by Getúlio and was now seen by Lacerda as a man of honor. Ancora was characterized, in Lacerda’s version, as one sacrificed because of his righteous conduct. Ancora’s removal was deemed as one more example of the “monstrous deception commanded by Vargas to shield criminals.” Lacerda insinuated, between the lines, that those behind the assassination could be the president’s brother, Benjamim Vargas; his son, deputy Lutero Vergas; the all-powerful industrialist Euvaldo Lodi; and Vargas himself — the latter, in the best-case hypothesis, being an accessory after the fact.

At the same time it was now useful for him to praise General Ancora, in another part of the newspaper Lacerda praised the new head of the DPS. Lacerda was a master of intrigue, thought Freitas, he managed to conceal with the brilliance of his oratory the enormous, sometimes cynical, contradictions of his political opportunism. The journalist was running for federal deputy in the October elections; if his election was assured before, the attack would surely make him the biggest vote-getter in Rio, maybe in the entire country. Giving power, however little, to a man with that terrible eloquence was very dangerous. It would have been better if Lacerda was killed rather than his bodyguard. Getúlio Vargas, with his old-school, monotonous, and prudent oratory, had succeed in dominating the country for a long time; what wouldn’t Lacerda do with his incendiary intelligence and his ability to use words, like no other politician in Brazilian history, to persuade, deceive, excite, mobilize people? His newspaper articles and his radio talks in recent days had led the government to place thirty thousand soldiers on ready alert just in Rio de Janeiro.

In the paper was a picture of Colonel Paulo Torres, the new chief of police. Torres had commanded, till then, the Third Infantry Regiment, quartered in the São Gonçalo district. He was forty-two, had served with Zenóbio in the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in Italy during the Second World War, and had been awarded a metal for bravery. He had been a military attaché in Rome, Paris, and London. He also had a law degree. In Brazil, everybody has a law degree, thought Freitas, including himself.

Freitas was friends with the brothers of the new head of the DPS, Acúrcio Torres, majority leader in the Chamber of Deputies in the Dutra administration, and Alberto Torres, current leader of the UDN in the legislature of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Could appointing a chief of police with family ties to the UDN be a fainthearted concession by Getúlio? Or evidence that Capanema, when he said “the president of the Republic has no desire to see this crime go unpunished,” was speaking the truth? Or both? Getúlio both innocent and fearful? It would be interesting if true.

The senator liked Capanema, an ingenuous sort who had been discredited by accepting the role of government leader in the Chamber. A man of integrity, cultured, unjustly accused of graft and stupidity: of stupidity because he had been secretary of education under the Vargas dictatorship. Every education secretary in Brazil, however intelligent, ended up being called stupid; it was a kind of curse. He, Freitas, would never accept that cabinet position.

One news item was read by Freitas with irony. The publishers of the newspapers — Elmano Cardim, of the Jornal do Comércio ; Roberto Marinho, of O Globo ; João Portela Ribeiro Dantas, of the Diário de Notícias ; Carlos Rizzini, of Diários Associados ; Chagas Freitas, of A Notícia ; Othon Paulino, of O Dia ; Paulo Bittencourt, of Correio da Manhã ; Macedo Soares, Horácio de Carvalho Júnior, Danton Jobim and Pompeu de Souza, of the Diário Carioca —had obtained the right to have an accredited representative participate in the Rua Tonelero inquiry. Those scoundrels actually believed in the advantageous myth, which they themselves had invented, that the press was the fourth branch of government. Shrewd, the Crow — Freitas rarely referred to Lacerda by the nickname used by Vargas partisans, but that news item had turned him against all journalists — the Crow, even being the publisher of a newspaper, had refrained from signing the petition. But he didn’t need to do so; the military who now were in control of the police investigation of Rua Tonelero were all Lacerdists. Lacerda was running the inquiry. The name of Samuel Wainer, publisher of Última Hora , was also missing from the list. Perhaps he hadn’t been invited by his peers. As if the signers of the document were attempting to demonstrate by the exclusion of Wainer and Lacerda the independence of their proposal. Two factious, antagonistic currents were clashing, and the press had chosen its side.

Freitas imagined the success of Lacerda’s inflammatory phrases at the Lantern Club meeting scheduled for that evening at the Brazilian Press Association: “Only dictators and despots protect themselves with hoodlums and thugs; Vargas’s personal guard is an affront to legal order, a disrespect for our people; Vargas will be deposed for the blood he has shed.”

The newspapers said further that José Antonio Soares, the railroad worker and friend of the personal guard Climerio Euribes de Almeida, had disappeared from his residence at 29 Padre Nóbrega, in the Cascadura district, after receiving a package from his lover Nelly Gama. In fleeing, Soares, whom the police believed to be the gunman who had shot Major Vaz, had left behind nine thousand cruzeiros, which indicated his haste. The police, under the command of Commissioner Hermes Machado, had invaded Soares’s dwelling and found only his mother and the children, terrified at the police paraphernalia. The inspector had seized Soares’s correspondence with the famous Barreto, a notorious swindler locked up in the penitentiary. In one letter, Barreto authorized Soares to receive fifty percent as an advance on the sale of fifty jeeps.

Suddenly an item, almost at the end of Lacerda’s article, sent a tremor of cold and fear through Freitas and made him turn on the hot water faucet: “I called Inspector Pastor three times without having the honor of his visit.” Lacerda, alleging that his attackers were three rather than just one, as Pastor said, wanted to confront the inspector with his testimony. Pastor’s name brought to Freitas’s mind once again, in a disturbing association, another pastor, the nosy fundamentalist that had caught him in a vexing situation, and another cop, Inspector Mattos. He left the bathroom, feeling chilled. He was in danger and needed to do something. He dressed quickly and got into the official car awaiting him at the door of the Seabra Building.

He entered the Senate chamber at the moment the Brazilian Workers Party leader, Senator Carlos Gomes de Oliveira, was defending the government. What was lamentable in the Tonelero episode, the PTB leader said, was the desire of certain extreme elements, who, mixed with communist exploitation, sought to involve the armed forces in an attempt to have them depose the president of the Republic. It was an unfolding of events whose outcome no one could predict.

Getúlio was ill served by leaders like the PTB senator, Freitas thought. That same day he began to make contacts with the PSD congressional bloc with the objective of probing the opportunity and the advisability of a change of direction. Supporting a corrupt and weak government had yielded him much good business. But now it was time to jump ship.

A PANTRYMAN OPENED THE DOOR to Luciana Gomes Aguiar’s apartment.

“I’m Inspector Mattos. Dona Luciana is expecting me.”